Comments on - On the Nature of the PhD Program in Science

By: Cato's Letters

Cato's Letters — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:34:40 +0000

I don't think there is much nonsense whine-and-cry. Let's talk about hot cocoa, just to start with the silliest example. Well, there are reasonable reasons not to allow hot cocoa in a lab. But, most other jobs allow you to have hot cocoa. In most labs, it is the laziness of professors and administration to define where there are actual safety issues against food. It is pure CYA and they tend to say "no food in labs" even though a lot of labs could be computer labs for example. It's this kind of lazy idiocy that prevails, not in all places, but as a general rule.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:55:35 +0000

Thank you Cato. Those are good reasons to be wary of a Ph.D. education. I think it's important to realize that education is important. It's just that it can be done better. ...and in the midst of crying out "academia needs to improve", it's easy to get lost in nonsense noise - like "my adviser had a nervous twitch that made my Ph.D. unduly stressful". Or the like. My point is - there are very real reasons why it's important to analyze academia and improve it where needed. And nonsense whine-and-cry obscures that.

By: Cato's Letters

Cato's Letters — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:06:27 +0000

Specific example, since I've been here, the department head tells the incoming crop that it takes an average of 4 years to complete a PhD here. It is more like 5.5 or maybe even higher. It's not that you can't go dig for better data, but it's not like this is they only thing they shade the truth about.

By: Cato's Letters

Cato's Letters — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:04:02 +0000

The big things you need to know are really only 3. (1) They don't inform you how much it sucks because they control the salesmanship of the program. (2) There aren't enough academic positions to meet the number of PhDs they produce and you probably don't realize it (and you don't need a PhD for industry and why would you be in pre-professor training with no chance of wanting to be a professor?) and (3) Even if you are the lucky ones to get an academic post, it is a lot worse than you think it is (again, they control the salesmanship info) but now you are locked in, not a slave but very high switching costs.

By: Cato's Letters

Cato's Letters — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:10:41 +0000

From observation and theoretical pondering, I think you need to push forward publication yourself. You might have to do more of the legwork like selecting journals, but the PI is as likely to drag his feet resisting you as he is dragging his feet in helping you.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 04:30:03 +0000

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. But you just articulated (I think) a good reason why a PhD is so frustrating - it is unduly long. That is not only a good reason, it is one of the best too. That is exactly what I meant by articulate. And I brought it up because I see an increasing number of kids jumping on the bandwagon crying "my adviser sucks too!", without a real reason for it. I can write down ten reasons my adviser sucks ass. But I know that when I do it, most are just personal dislikes - and not legitimate problems with the academic system. That's what I think is important to prevent. We don't want to make the mistake of confusing a personal dislike for an academic problem - because if we do, we lose credibility. It's hard to change something after you've lost credibility. That's all.

By: Anonymous 8345

Anonymous 8345 — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 13:25:49 +0000

Articulate!? Would it be right to put it this way? If we omit personal qualities of a PI the big picture would be the following. There is a clash between time scale of a living person and time scale of science. Basically, every living person wants to see some results of his/her activity in a reasonable time, say few years. For science time does not matter at all. What matters for science is expansion of sphere of knowledge. As long as this is achieved any system providing it, even modern academia, is good enough. Even efficiency does not matter as long as you have infinite time. Science does have it.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 04:33:53 +0000

I really emphasize with your guys. I do. And I think you raise some excellent points - which I thank you for, because it gives me a basis to stop my education at the M.S. level, and to pursue greener pastures. But - this website makes a good point that will be lost if it degrades into a forum for cheap insults. Kids contemplating a graduate education in science will read this forum. And when they read a thoughtful, balanced critique of academia they will pay attention to it. Yet, if all they see is a bunch of "my adviser sucks because he didn't let have hot cocoa in the lab" or "my adviser stole Christmas and didn't give it back" they will discard everything they just read. I guess that's the sad part. We have legitimate concerns with academia. There are real reasons we're not staying. And for the sake of both academia and students, it would be constructive to discuss these concerns. But we're not going to do it by taking cheap shots at advisers simply because they had standards. Can any of you articulate the actual reason you're so frustrated with academia? I know you feel it, but can you articulate it? Because that's what you need to be doing.

By: Anonymous 8345

Anonymous 8345 — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 05:40:09 +0000

As an insider who just left academia I couldn't agree more. I am looking for any suggestions on how to exchange my PhD for time I wasted doing it. It is a good thesis but my PI made it so that only him benefited from it. He is still delaying my publications for no reason. Postdoc experience has confirmed and reinforced all fears I had about academic environment after PhD. A typical PI from outside looks happy, smiley and very enthusiastic. This mask hides a parasite who sucks blood from young inspired people.

By: Benito Kamela

Benito Kamela — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:54:28 +0000

the true is that academia is nasty place, academics are dicks, and the phd is the dick's nest of academia. The phd is just a degree of recent invention, but it is not different to any other job, a job where you require a high intellectual level. I think the phd should be eliminated, it is an artificial construct made to benefit academics who get all the money from very lucrative projects, and do not give a fair salary to those who are doing the hard work. One more think, you may say that these people do not have to be compensated becomes they are being paid for living "the life of the mind". Stuff and nonsense!!! The truth is that is that those who handle the money want you to believe that, so that they get away with everything. In the meantime, you are getting older, losing the chance of have a fair salary and a normal life and accumulating all the frustration of a very smart loser.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:07:53 +0000

I know your frustration is mostly with the Ph.D. process - something which many of us graduate students can relate to. You sacrifice an enormous amount of time and labor, and forfeit many of life's opportunities for a process that may or may not yield those magical three letters - PhD, that is - and which, even if does, gives you diminishing opportunity to become gainfully employed after graduation. I would like to bring up another issue altogether. The issue of educational inflation. A kid going through college today can expect more for the same education than you and I did when we first started - and it has been only a few years. Inflation in educational costs leads national average inflation rates by 4-fold, and this includes not only tuition and fees and room and board, but also textbook prices. Textbook prices like $194.30 for a new Pearson pre-calc textbook - or $88.00 for a one-semester rental. The development of calculus began with Renee Descartes in the 17th century, and reached maturity with B. Riemann in the middle of the 19th century. Calculus, the way we know it today, has remained mostly unchanged for roughly 150 years. Yet, a new edition for a pre-calc textbook comes out nearly every year - mostly with a few inconsequential changes - and textbook prices continues to soar. I take the issue of educational inflation seriously. Education should be a tool for success, yet it has become one of the biggest financial burdens you might take between the day you are born and the day you die. In this forum for graduate students, I am wondering what your position might be on educational inflation?

By: Anon

Anon — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:15:54 +0000

Seeing it's a year old there is probably no point, but I could pick apart every point this winner has made. I won't do them all but I'll provide evidence. 1. It is never the right thing to ask a winner about the merit of the game. 2. $12 might be good for KFC but it is not good for someone in grad school where KFC is NOT the correct control. 3. You can't say that grad school provides a lot of training AND complete freedom. What you learn in grad school you teach yourself, which is fine, except that a lot of what you are learning is only good in academia which most people even if they finish will not continue in. Etc.

By: Anonymous 6ecd

Anonymous 6ecd — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 05:46:05 +0000

NIH Report Urges Greater Emphasis on Training for All Graduate Students

Jeffrey Mervis
It's a familiar complaint: Academic researchers intent on cranking out another paper and obtaining their next grant sometimes see their students as little more than another pair of hands rather than as scientists in training. Now comes a new report that attempts to redefine the goals of graduate and postdoctoral training and prods biomedical scientists to become better mentors. Similar exhortations have been made before, but the report comes from an organization with significant financial clout: the flagship training institute at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6017/525

By: Anonymous 0868

Anonymous 0868 — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:46:46 +0000

Brilliant blog, I work at a DOE national laboratory in a non research engineering position and I constantly say PhD students are slave labor.

By: Yusei Fudo

Yusei Fudo — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:41:15 +0000

"And actually there probably aren't any very smart people working at Walmart, low paid high IQ people work at bookstores and Starbucks."

http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/when_humans_bec.html

I think the KFC comparison is inappropriate. Bookstore and Starbucks employees are a better comparison for the intelligent demographic that applies to grad school (that just reflects people into liberal arts).

So do you think working at Barnes & Noble or Starbucks is a better option financially than being a grad student or post-doc? At least you'll retain your dignity because you not work with proles at WalMart or at a fast food joint?

By: diordmehc

diordmehc — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:18:19 +0000

So that's exactly the problem. It's not about what you want, it's about what other people want or need. If you have this haughty opinion that "you will not work in KFC", you will always be miserable. We live in a social world, the point is to do something that someone else wants. You're lucky if it's something you also want to do, but there's always hobbies.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/12/the-fable-of-market-meritocrac